Every grid incident in public reporting that names a power line, a pylon or a cable: fires, failures and the outages that followed, each with its sources. Free to read.
139 entries so far, 81 since 2024. Confirm your email and every substation and transformer incident on the register arrives as a spreadsheet (CSV), free. One email when a new incident is reported, at most two a day, plus a Monday digest. Free, no account needed, unsubscribe in one click.
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Newest incident first. Search them, or narrow them by country, year or severity. Each entry is free to read, with what happened and its sources; the record behind it adds the cause where it is established, the part that failed, the downtime and the loss.
At about 11.10pm on Thursday 22 October 2026, an explosion involving equipment on an electricity pylon in Grantham, Lincolnshire, damaged a vehicle and two nearby properties. National Grid has confirmed a fault involving equipment on one of its pylons in...
On 23 October 2026, a distribution box (transformer box) exploded on Suao New City South Road in Suao, Yilan County, Taiwan, as a typhoon approached the area. According to the report, the incident happened at about 15:50 during strong winds, when the power...
Fires in an underground power cable and in the lead of a distribution transformer interrupted electricity supply in the Kalimahal and Chetganj areas of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, over the weekend of 17 and 18 October 2026. In Kalimahal, an underground cable...
The record behind each entry: the manufacturer, integrator and operator, root cause, failure mode, downtime, losses and every source.
At midday, a transformer at the TEİAŞ substation on the Silvan road in Diyarbakır, Turkey, exploded, and smoke from the blast was seen from many parts of the city. Fire and emergency teams were dispatched and the transformer fire was brought under control and...
On Thursday 15 October 2026, at about 4 p.m., a landslide incapacitated the Ketchikan Public Utilities Ward Cove Electrical Substation in Ketchikan. According to the City of Ketchikan public information officer, rain and wind caused trees, rocks and mud near...
A fire broke out at City Power's Central substation in Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon, 13 October 2026, according to EWN and TimesLive. City Power described it as the fourth fire at the facility in roughly two months. The fire damaged feeder board 4 and...
An unidentified man was found dead early in the morning on the road shoulder beside a Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) substation in Felda Adela, near Sungai Rengit, Kota Tinggi, Johor. Police said the death is believed to be an electric shock while the man was...
Russian attacks damaged substations and overhead and underground power lines in Zaporizhzhia city and in frontline areas of Zaporizhzhia oblast, Ukraine. According to the regional electricity company, which announced the damage on its Telegram channel and was...
On a Monday evening in October 2026, a short circuit set fire to electricity wires strung on poles at Dubagga, in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Local residents telephoned the substation and asked for supply to be switched off. Electricity workers attended the site,...
On a Sunday morning in October 2026, a short circuit on a 440 volt electricity supply line caused the wire to catch fire at Maranchi Durga Chowk, within the Hathidah electricity substation area in Patna, Bihar. Smoke and flames from the wire alarmed nearby...
A transformer and power line were reported to have come down at Tonset Road and Main Street in Orleans sometime after 5:30 pm on Monday, causing a small brush fire and cutting power to 1,200 Eversource customers. Traffic was diverted around the area....
At least four underground electrical vaults in San Francisco's Financial District caught fire or erupted on the morning of 1 October 2026, after smoke was reported from vaults near California Street and Front Street. The San Francisco Fire Department...
On 26 September 2026, a transformer on a nearby power line exploded and fell onto the rooftop of Mahela Khatun Mohila Madrasa in the Hajipara area of Fatullah, Narayanganj, Bangladesh, while five students were playing there. All five suffered burns and were...
On a Wednesday afternoon, a transformer at the electrical substation on the medical college campus in Hardoi caught fire. The report says a sudden increase in load was followed by smoke and flames from the transformer leads and cables. Electricity department...
On 29 September 2026 a cable caught fire in Teen Khamba Wali Gali, in the area served by the Bahadurganj electrical substation in Shahjahanpur, India. An electricity corporation team attended and repaired the cable. Supply in that area was reported off from...
On 3 September 2026, a fire broke out in grass next to the powerhouse at Fort Peck Dam in northeastern Montana. Local emergency services said a failed transformer knocked a live power line to the ground and set the grass alight. The outage affected 3,157...
A fire broke out inside the Lambert Street 417 electricity substation in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, cutting power to parts of the upper CBD. Firefighters had to force open the substation, reportedly using the jaws of life, before they could tackle heavy...
A fire broke out on 8 September 2026 at the Central Substation in Johannesburg's CBD, operated by City Power, disrupting electricity supply to parts of Marshalltown, City and Suburban, Johannesburg Central and Selby. It was the second fire at the same...
City Power reported fires at Fordsburg substation and Central substation within about a two week period, cutting power to surrounding communities and businesses in Johannesburg. At the first substation, around 90 percent of affected residents had power...
On the afternoon of 4 August 2026, firefighters were called to East 31st Street in La Grange Park, Illinois, after it appeared a utility pole had come down in a parking lot behind the Arbor Animal Hospital, together with two transformers and three main power...
Counted from the register on 27 October 2026. The 139 entries whose own reporting names this, of 1,077 substation and transformer entries in all. A mention in the reporting, not a finding of fault.
As the register classes each entry, from its sources.
| What happened | Entries | |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical | 107 | |
| Thermal / fire | 24 | |
| Other | 6 | |
| Near-miss | 1 | |
| Mechanical | 1 |
Counted from the words of each entry's own reporting: an entry counts under each part it names, and "Not stated" means the public reporting named none. A mention, not a finding of fault.
| Part named | Entries | |
|---|---|---|
| Cable or overhead line | 139 | |
| Transformer | 60 | |
| Switchgear or breaker | 13 | |
| Substation building or control room | 2 |
| Country | Entries | |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 44 | |
| South Africa | 29 | |
| United Kingdom | 16 | |
| India | 11 | |
| Canada | 4 | |
| Australia | 4 | |
| Malaysia | 3 | |
| Ukraine | 3 | |
| Germany | 2 | |
| Russia | 2 | |
| Taiwan | 1 | |
| Turkey | 1 | |
| Bangladesh | 1 | |
| Greece | 1 | |
| Kenya | 1 | |
| Cuba | 1 | |
| Bahamas | 1 | |
| Japan | 1 | |
| Ghana | 1 | |
| Egypt | 1 | |
| Jordan | 1 | |
| Finland | 1 | |
| Brazil | 1 | |
| Netherlands | 1 | |
| Malta | 1 | |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 1 | |
| United States Virgin Islands | 1 | |
| Tanzania | 1 | |
| Not stated | 3 |
Type up to eight company names (operators, owners, manufacturers, contractors) and your email address. The brief comes back by email: every published power line and cable entry that names them, with its sources, and a plain line where a name has no entries. Free, once, no account.
The register holds 139 power line and cable entries from public reporting, 2013 to 2026, in 28 countries. 24 of them are fires or thermal events; the rest are electrical, other, near-miss and other incidents. Each entry lists its sources.
Where the public reporting names a part, the most common are cable or overhead line (139), transformer (60), switchgear or breaker (13). 0 of the 139 entries name no part. The register does not guess a cause; where a fire service, regulator or the operator states one, the entry carries it and says who said it.
In the reporting the register has found, United States (44), South Africa (29), United Kingdom (16) have the most entries. 16 are in the United Kingdom. That partly reflects where the assets are built and where the press reports on them.
Yes. Sign up on this page for power line and cable incidents: one email when a new incident is reported, at most two a day, plus a Monday digest. Free, no account, and every substation and transformer incident on the register arrives as a spreadsheet when you confirm.
Public reporting on power line and cable incidents often names the site but rarely the make, the model or the cause. The register does not guess them. Where a fire service, regulator or the operator states one, the entry carries it and says who said it.
139 entries so far, 81 since 2024. Confirm your email and every substation and transformer incident on the register arrives as a spreadsheet (CSV), free. One email when a new incident is reported, at most two a day, plus a Monday digest. Free, no account needed, unsubscribe in one click.
We will also email you about the register's paid records and plans, at most once a week and three times in all. You can stop these at any time. By subscribing you agree to the privacy policy.